The official start of the process.

Finally we have a confirmation letter from the USCIS (The Department of Homeland Security) indicating they have started processing our petition.
I received an email early this morning from them indicating the receipt of our application. This is a copy of the actual E-mail.

USCIS Acceptance Confirmation

Your case has been accepted and routed to the USCIS California Service Center for processing. Within 7-10 days by standard mail you will receive your official Receipt Notice (Form I-797) with your Receipt Number #############. With the official Receipt Notice (Form I-797) you may visit www.uscis.gov where you can check the status of your case using My Case Status. We suggest you wait until you have received your Form I-797 before checking My Case Status.

This confirmation provides notification of the date USCIS received your case.  This notice does NOT grant any immigration status or benefit. You MAY NOT present this notice as evidence that you have been granted any immigration status or benefit. Further, this notice does NOT constitute evidence that your case remains pending with USCIS. The current status of your case must be verified with USCIS.

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE

Fortunately, now we have an official timeline we can follow. We still have many forms to file among other things and there will still be at least 5 months before Anna's Visa can be approved but at least we have started the process.
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The clock starts Monday!

Finally after sitting in U.S. customs for 8 days, Anna's letter arrived with the signed papers necessary for me to submit the I-129f to begin the process to file for the K-1 Visa.
After I received the papers, I was able to overnight the package to the USCIS office in Lewisville Texas using FedEx. The estimated date of arrival is Monday, October 22 after I sent it on Friday Evening.
Once the U.S.C.I.S.(The Department of homeland security) receives the package they will review it. This will begin a long process that may take between 6 months to 1 year. In fact statistics have proven that the average waiting time for the approval of the K-1 Visa is 250 days.
I must admit this is not very convenient for either Anna or I. But, we have no choice than to wait. We hope that somehow our petition will be expedited in some way. But at least we can expect that Anna will be here within a year. Finally!
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At the mercy of U.S. Customs

Anna sent her signed papers to me using the express mail service on the 29th of September. Unfortunately, Express Mail means nothing when it comes to U.S. Customs.
Since Anna used the Express mail service we are able to track its location. It appears that it was delivered to U.S. customs at 3:30 AM on the 8th of this month.
It is hard to believe that a letter containing 2 sheets of paper can be held for such a long period of time. I guess they must suspect that those 2 pages must contain something that compromises the security of our borders. In truth, all that is contained in the 2 papers is a letter of intent and the Form I-129F signed by Anna so that we can send the complete package to the USCIS in order to apply for the K-1 visa.
I tried calling Customs to ask them why it must take so long and they told me (and I must say very rudely) that they can hold a letter for up to 45 days. Government efficiency displayed at its finest.
But now we are held at the mercy of U.S. Customs. I only hope that it will leave customs this week.

So much for express mail I guess!

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Waiting and Waiting And Waiting...

Both Anna and I have filled out the necessary papers to file the I-129F, Petition for the Foreign Fiance. My papers are all packaged and ready to go, but now we wait for Anna's signed papers to arrive in the mail.
She sent the papers using the express mail service on September 29th and it took nearly 5 days for the letter to leave Moscow after waiting in customs for almost 3 days. It finally arrived in New York almost 3 days ago and now it sits in customs again.  There is nothing I can do but ask myself the question "Why must a single envelope with 2 papers enclosed spend over 6 days waiting in Customs?".
Unfortunately we must continue to wait for the time that customs will allow a letter to pass through. It seems neither the Russian Postal service or the U.S.  Postal Service knows what the word "Express" means.
I can only hope that the letter will leave customs in New York tomorrow.
So Anna and I will lay and wait until the papers finally arrive so we can file the necessary paper. Unfortunately though we must continue to lay in separate countries.

Filing for the Visa

Anna and I have began to fill out the necessary paperwork to file for the K-1 Visa which is a Visa that is issued for a foreign fiancee. We will also need to get K-2 Visas, one for each of her children.
We have found that this is not an easy process and it will take a great deal of time until we can finally have her come here to be with me.

I had to fill out and sign the form I-129F which is the Petition for an Alien Fiance. Both Anna and I had to fill out the G-325A Forms which are Biographical supplementary forms that will be included with the petition. We also had to write and sign letters of intent to get married in addition to providing proof of us meeting each other in person within the past 2 years. That is the easy part. I have included photos of us together along with a copy of the plane ticket and the letter of invitation she originally sent me. Also we had to both get passport style photos taken to include in the petition.
Right now, I am waiting for Anna's signed papers that she mailed me last week so that I can submit the application. We hope the paperwork will arrive early next week. Once I receive the papers then I can get all the documents into one package and send them to the USCIS in Texas.
Once again we must wait. I can only hope that our Visa will be approved soon and Anna will be here soon.

Photos from Russia

I am sorry it has taken so long to upload the photos from Russia but I managed to finally get many of them uploaded to my Google photos.

Unfortunately I don't have the time to post them all here but you should be able to access them with the following link. Hopefully everyone can view them without difficulty.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/107596148582140333168/albums/5794501328282559121
Enjoy!